JDR fined for staining environment

illustration photo

Phu Yen provincial People’s Committee just slapped a fine of VND130 million ($6,250) on JRD Manufacturing Automobiles Company Ltd for contaminating the environment.

The committee also told the company to clean up its mess within the next three months.
JRD, in Tuy An district’s An My commune, was busted for letting oil spill into the environment, not classifying its toxic waste and dumping toxic waste with concentrations far higher than permissible limits. The company also failed to draw up plans to manage the factory’s oil and waste water.

The oil spill caused major damage to a nearby rice paddy. The latest fine is the third JRD has been hit with for environmental damage. In late October, the company was fined over $1,200 by the provincial authorities after being  found burying toxic waste. In 2008, authorities also discovered JRD had buried five tanks of toxic chemicals.

A JRD source told VIR the company was cooperating with an environmental pollution treatment company to install a modern waste treatment facility.

The source said the latest punishment had badly dented the company’s prestige at a time when it was faced with business difficulties. “Automobile sales of the company in 2011 are down 10 per cent against 2010. The company has also had to cut its workforce by 15 per cent. I think the company’s future business performance here may be even more difficult than it is in 2011,” the source said.

JRD company was licenced in May 2005 as a $100 million joint venture between Malaysia’s leading automobile manufacturer JRD Motor Vehicle and local firm Phu Yen Industrial Production Export Import Company. The joint venture can churn out as many as 15,000 assorted cheap cars per year.

In a similar development, southern Binh Phuoc People’s Committee has forced South Korean-invested C&N Vina - the investor of Minh Hung Industrial Park - to pay the $7,200 fine it incurred last September for pollution. C&N Vina has yet to cough up.

The provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment has also asked the committee to impose a fine of $14,900 on South Korean cassava starch maker Wusons, after this firm was found to be discharging wastewater with pollutant concentrations far higher than permissible limits.

Since 2008, many other foreign polluters have been caught damaging the environment. These include Taiwanese-backed Vedan, South Korea’s monosodium glutamate maker Miwon Vietnam – which discharged toxic water into the Red River – and Japan’s Da Lat-Japan Food Company in Lam Dong province.

Other offenders include Thai-backed MK Sugar International in Binh Thuan province, Ba Ria-Vung Tau province-based British-backed Meisheng Text, Ho Chi Minh City-based Vietstar company and Taiwanese-backed Tung Kuang in Hai Duong province.

Magnicon Company, South Korean-backed Sae Hwa Vina Company, Binh Duong province-based Taiwanese-backed Kin Sing Company, Fotai Vietnam Company, Taung Liang, Jorn Technology and Cosmos Knitting International, Ho Chi Minh City-based South Korean-backed Kukjin company, and Indian-invested sugar and alcohol maker Nivl Joint Stock Company have also got into hot water.